EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 



FERTILIZER ANALYSES. 



BY FLOYD W. ROBISOX. 



Act No. 26 of the Session Laws of 1885 provides for the inspection and analysis 

 of all brands of commercial fertilizers on sale in Michigan. In order to have 

 these analyses serve the purpose best, it has been considered advisable to pub- 

 lish the results of analyses as early in the summer as the work will permit. 

 These analyses cover goods shipped into the state in the spring of the current 

 year and also in the fall of the previous year. The analyses are made upon 

 goods selected in the open market in all cases when they may be found. 



WHAT GOODS ARE SUBJECT TO LICENSE. 



• This division interprets as subject to license any fertilizer, so-called chemical 

 sold as fertilizer, bone products, salts, ground rock, etc., the retail price of which 

 exceeds $10.00 per ton. 



The manufacturer's license extends over a definite period of time and does not 

 cover a definite brand of goods for all time. Because a certain brand of fertilizer 

 is legally on sale during 1903 is no reason why it is legally on sale in 1904. As 

 soon as the time limit of a fertilizer expires, that fertilizer is illegally on sale 

 and is subject to all the provisions of the statute relating to unlawful goods. 

 If dealers have such goods on hand they must either return them to the manufac- 

 turer or pay the license fee. 



THE OBJECT OF A LICENSE AND ANALYSIS. 



It is manifestly impossible by a simple, microscopic examination of a fertilizer 

 to tell anything about its value. Something may be told concerning the purity of 

 food by a physical examination of the food, but the chemist himself can tell 

 little of the value of a fertilizer except he analyze it in his laboratory. It is the 

 recognition of this fact that caused the passage of the fertilizer law and placed 

 it in the control of independent hands. To protect the user of fertilizers in a 

 matter in which he is clearly and wholly incompetent to protect himself was 

 the object of this law. Suppose a farmer decides to buy a fertilizer for his own 

 use, the same fertilizer not being licensed, and as an inducement he is offered it 

 at one or two dollars less per ton. The manufacturer gives him a guaranteed an- 

 alysis, but he has nothing except the manufacturer's guaranty to assure him that 

 the goods are what they are claimed to be. This station cannot analyse them 

 for him for they are not licensed. He may be using a good fertilizer or he may 

 be using one without value and he has no redress. On the other hand if the 

 fertilizer in question is a licensed one the meaning is clear that the correct an- 

 alysis of the goods is shown in the Annual Fertilizer Bulletin alongside the 

 manufacturer's guaranty and the farmer knows that he can depend upon it. 

 Neither the station analysis nor the fact that a fertilizer is licensed is proof 



